Twenty-six named needling methods: the nine needlings, the twelve seasonal needlings and the five zang needlings.
Ling Shu (灵枢)General Principles of Needling
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
The English is translated from the Chinese vernacular. The original text and its pinyin sit beneath each sentence in smaller type; hide them whenever you prefer to read the translation alone.
There are nine methods of needling, answering to nine kinds of change in illness.
ORIGINAL凡刺有九，以应九变。
fán cì yǒu jiǔ，yǐ yīng jiǔ biàn。
The first is transport needling; the second, distant needling; the third, channel needling; the fourth, collateral needling; the fifth, parted needling; the sixth, great draining needling; the seventh, hair needling; the eighth, contralateral needling; the ninth, cautery needling.
There are also twelve nodes of needling, answering to the twelve channels.
ORIGINAL凡刺有十二节，以应十二经。
fán cì yǒu shí èr jié，yǐ yīng shí èr jīng。
The first is paired needling; the second, responding needling; the third, restoring needling; the fourth, even needling; the fifth, scattered needling; the sixth, straight needling; the seventh, transport needling; the eighth, short needling; the ninth, floating needling; the tenth, yin needling; the eleventh, side-by-side needling; the twelfth, assisting needling.
There are in addition five methods of needling, answering to the five viscera.
ORIGINAL凡刺有五，以应五脏。
fán cì yǒu wǔ，yǐ yīng wǔ zàng。
The first is half needling; the second, leopard-spot needling; the third, joint needling; the fourth, joining-valley needling; the fifth, transport needling.
Guan Zhen is the most systematic catalogue of needling technique in the classics. It sets out nine methods suited to different tissues and conditions, twelve methods that vary with the season, and five methods directed at the five zang. Each is named, and each name describes a physical action rather than an abstract principle.
The chapter is also a record of how varied classical practice was. It includes shallow pricking, deep insertion, bloodletting with a three-edged needle, fire needling, and techniques aimed at tendons, at bones and at the spaces between them. Modern textbooks still borrow its vocabulary.
ANNOTATION
Nine variations (九变): nine classes of changing clinical circumstance. Needle method is set according to the illness, not fixed in advance.
Contralateral needling (巨刺): needling the channel to treat the opposite side, distinguished from miao needling, which treats the opposite side through the collaterals.
Cautery needling (焔刺): the fire needle, heated red and inserted and withdrawn swiftly.
Leopard-spot needling (豹文刺): multiple prickings that draw blood, leaving marks like a leopard’s coat.
COMMENTARY
This chapter is the ancient catalogue of needle methods. Encircling, scattered, fire, bleeding and side-by-side needling as practised today can nearly all be found here in prototype. Note especially that the ancients set the method by layer — skin, vessel, flesh, sinew, bone — a sense of depth more refined than selecting by point alone, and one that is largely neglected now.